


Phantom Pain

by hardlynoticeable



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2019-10-31 10:36:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17847830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlynoticeable/pseuds/hardlynoticeable
Summary: "I must not tell lies."Fifteen years of not feeling anything from his soulmate, of never even knowing if he had one, and the first sign he got was those words carving themselves into the back of his hands. Every night for a week, like a small knife was being use to write on his flesh. And just like with the paper cut on Blaise's thumb, there was no blood. Only the cut and pain.NO WHERE NEAR FINISHED. JUST FRAGMENTS THAT I'M SLOWLY WORKING ON.





	1. Prelude

_The Manor’s dining hall was silent and still, each cloaked figure waiting anxiously for news of their Dark Lord and his second-in-command. They filled the chairs around the long table, only moving to sip the wine the Malfoy's house elves provided. Lucius Malfoy sat at the head of the table. He hadn’t moved since the Dark Lord left them. His wife was the only person standing; she had her golden wine glass clutched in front of her as she stared into the fireplace. Internally, she hoped that this would be the night it ended. God willing, there would be no more victims in her home. No more monsters traipsing about terrifying her son or snakes slithering around threatening his young life. There would finally be peace in her home, whether He returned or not._

_The house elves returned again to refill her guests’ wine. She waved off the squeaky little thing that tried to refill her glass and placed it on their tray instead. She hadn’t even sipped her first cup._

_She needed to check on Draco. It had been hours since she put him to bed._

_Right as she turned to head upstairs, an ear-piercing scream broke the tense silence of the dining hall._

_Even with the horrors of the war, Narcissa had never heard a scream that terrified her more. She had heard people shriek in the agony of torture, played witness to people pleading for their lives, listened to mothers wailing over their dead children, but nothing chilled her more than this scream._

_This one came from her son._

_She practically flew up the stairs, clutching the hem of her dress to her hip so she could run unimpeded. In her panic, she completely forgot the magic she had nurtured all her life. Apparating didn’t even cross her mind._

_A house elf – Dobby, if memory served – was already reaching into Draco’s antique crib when she burst into the room._

_She rushed in and scooped her only son from his bed before the startled creature could. Draco had stopped his unholy screaming and switched to a miserable sort of wailing cry. Narcissa had never heard this cry before. Like most babies, Draco had a distinct cry for each of his needs; shrill and insistent when he was hungry, whiny and huffy when he was tired, sad and tearful when he felt neglected, or long and screeching when he needed something out of reach. She had even heard him scream out in fear when that wretched snake had slipped into his bed. But none of his cries compared to the horrendous sound coming from him now._

_Narcissa searched him and the room for a cause. His napkin was clean, he hadn’t had anything spilt on him, his dummy and favorite bear were intact and waiting in the crib, nothing was where it shouldn’t be... She turned to the elf. “What happened?" she demanded to know._

_Dobby looked absolutely terrified. “Dobby doesn’t know, Madam. Dobby was cleaning the Master’s bedroom. The Little Master was sleeping so nicely. Then the Little Master started screaming," the little creature squeaked loud enough to be heard over Draco._

_Narcissa pressed her lips to Draco’s forehead in search of a fever. His skin was so hot, her lips felt burned. The rest of his face, however, was cool to the touch._

_Dobby finally lit the chandelier above their heads, allowing Narcissa to get a proper look at Draco’s face. His cheeks were flushed from wailing, predictably. What was worrying, however, was how vividly red his forehead was. Narcissa looked down in his cradle for something that may have burned him, barking at Dobby to do the same when she saw nothing that could have._

_She looked back at Draco just in time to see an alarming lightning bolt shaped laceration appearing on his forehead._

_At a loss, she sank down on her knees and cradled Draco close. His screaming continued._

_“Shh, shh, Mummy's here,” she whispered soothingly. It was all she could do. The wound wasn’t bleeding, seemingly hadn’t come from anything, and she had no idea how to heal it. She lifted her head to look at Dobby and said, “Fetch a Healer. Quickly.” It was meant to come out as a command, but to both of their ears, it sounded more like a plea._

_The elf bobbed his head and disappeared with a snap._

_Narcissa was left alone with her wailing child in her arms. She held him, feeling more helpless than she ever had before. He must have been in tremendous pain and been so scared; he just kept crying. She felt him clutching at her and had to stop him from grabbing at his head. His sweet little grey eyes were so wide with fear it broke her heart and his voice grew raspy with strain. He looked up at her, seemingly realizing for the first time who was holding him, and cried, “Mama!”_

_Her heart felt like it was breaking. Her beautiful, clever boy. She had been so proud when he learned her name. Now she wished he hadn’t, just so she wouldn’t have to hear him sob it. He wanted her help, wanted her to make the pain stop, and she couldn’t do anything. She started crying right alongside him and buried her face in his hair so he might not see. His little fists clutched at her robes._

_Dobby returned to see his proud lady sitting on her knees, holding her precious child to her chest while they both sobbed wretchedly. He was struck still at the sight. He had never seen her cry before. None of the Malfoys did, as far as he knew. They were a proud, noble house and would never allow themselves to breakdown in front of people like that. But there she was, the lady of the house, crying just as wretchedly as the baby in her arms. It made him want to cry too._

_The Healer he had brought with him, however, was unmoved. He rushed forward and knelt to gently extract Draco from his mother’s arms._

_Narcissa lifted her head when she felt him trying to and nearly whimpered, “Healer Redgrave,” in relief. She relinquished Draco to him without hesitation._

_Healer Redgrave was a stern old man that looked after the children of every Pureblood family of means in the UK. He was at least ninety and had looked after both her sisters, herself, and Lucius when they were children. He had been Draco’s Healer from the moment he was conceived. He knew everything about children’s treatment and illnesses. She felt better knowing he was here._

_He stayed kneeling beside her and laid Draco on his raised knee to examine him. Draco reached his hands for his mother. She took one in hers and pressed a kiss to it, whispering, “Let him see you, darling. Be good for me.”_

_Redgrave pulled out his wand when he finished looking at Draco, prodding the strange laceration, and frowning at him. He cast one quick spell and the laceration on Draco’s forehead glowed white. Whatever it revealed to him seemed to be relieving; he passed Draco back to Narcissa and guided her to stand with him. Once they were standing, he cast a spell that showered Draco’s little head with bright blue sparks and his eyes slipped closed abruptly. He had put him to sleep._

_Narcissa looked at him for answers. He patted her on the shoulder; the most comforting the old man could be despite decades as a family Healer. “Phantom pain,” he said by way of explanation. “He’ll be fine in an hour.”_

_Impossible! Phantom pain was a phenomenon that toddlers were supposed to be protected from. They weren’t strong enough to handle it and didn’t have the ability to understand what was happening. Random pain that their parents couldn’t fix would be terrifying before your mummy or daddy could explain why it was happening._

_“How can that be?” she asked. “Children aren’t supposed to experience phantom pain until they’re at least five. Draco is a year old!”_

_“His soulmate must have gone through something truly spectacular. Agony, both physical and emotional. Something strong enough to break through the natural protections that children have.” He removed his spectacles and began to clean them with a cloth he produced from his sleeve. “I can’t tell you much more than that. To know what caused this, you would need a Seer.”_

_That much she knew. Her mother had taken her to a Seer when she was eight, to find out exactly who her own soulmate was. She had taken each of her daughters. Draco was supposed to go at eight, just like them, so that she and Lucius could start thinking about his future marriage. If his soulmate was from a decent family, they would reach out and start planning the marriage, the way her parents had for her. If not, they would start arranging a marriage to someone suitable, like her parents had done for Bellatrix and Andromeda, prior to the latter running away._

_She would take him straight to a Seer in the morning. They had to know what had happened to his soulmate and what effect it would have on Draco._

_She thanked Redgrave and he gave her the contact information for a Seer he knew. And then Dobby took him home and she moved to the glider in the window with her son._

_Lucius found them there a few hours later. He sat on the footstool in front of her and gave her the news that she had been simultaneously dreading and hoping to hear for years; the Dark Lord had been defeated._

_The Seer would have to wait._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting from my phone. Let me know if the formatting is wonky.

Draco was eight when a Seer confirmed that he had no soulmate. But he had known for a long time. He was a smart boy. He understood very quickly after his friends started complaining about phantom pain from their soulmates that he didn’t have one. They complained about the random pains that they would feel in the middle of playing or their studies. Goyle once collapsed, screaming, in the Manor’s back garden because his soulmate had broken their leg. It looked horrible. The screaming sounded worse.

Draco had never experienced anything like that. He skinned his knees falling off his broom, stubbed his toe on furniture, even sliced his hand open trying to retrieve his ball from a rose bush. He wasn’t a clumsy child, but things happened. Even his graceful mother got hurt sometimes. Yet his soulmate never seemed to. Draco never felt their pain or saw any strange marks, cuts, or bruises. They never even had a headache. Or they didn’t exist.

His knowledge about soulmates came from books. First, a fairytale Pansy’s nanny read them when they were five. Then a short book that his father supplied to his tutor. She read it to him during a history lesson. Finally, he got all the details that he needed from another book that he read himself. That one he took from his mother’s library. He read the entire thing, front to back. Read every detail so he could understand everything.

According to that book, every person had a soulmate. Studies had been conducted on newborns with Seers to test and prove that. Even if their soulmate died before they were born or before they started feeling phantom pain, they had one. The Greek myth that every soul was once part of a larger whole seemed to be true.

So Draco knew he must have had a soulmate at one point, but they were gone now. His generation was being born during a war, his father said. The percentage of children his age with deceased soulmates was going to be high. It was a hard thing to understand at eight years old, but Draco was smart. His tutors had explained percentages and taught him about the war. He took his mother’s advice and looked on the bright side; when he got married to a proper, pureblooded woman there would be no soulmate out in the world to keep him from feeling content.

He was lucky, Pansy insisted. The Seer had told her and her family that her soulmate was a girl and her father had been furious. He had tried to get the Seer to sever or close her link to her soulmate, but her mother had intervened. Instead they became determined to find her the best possible match. She had already attended tea with three different pureblood families – including one in France – with boys her age. They had even reached out to the Malfoys and Lucius had all but laughed in their faces. She would be married before twenty.

It was a shame. She already had a permanent scar from her soulmate. Shared scars were rare and the result of deep, serious injuries. It took a lot to reach across someone’s soulmate bond. Pansy had a long, neat cut across her stomach. Apparently, it hadn’t hurt at all. She showed it to him the day after it appeared and told him that her nanny said it was likely a surgical scar. It was over her appendix, apparently. If she was ever able to search for her soulmate, it would make things easier. She could just look for the girl with a matching scar.

Draco told his father and mother about it at dinner. Her father’s lip had curled in disgust. Narcissa pursed her lips before she explained, “Our kind does not get “surgical scars”, Draco. Only Muggles do.”

Draco wondered if Pansy’s family was so upset because her soulmate was a girl or if it was because she was a Muggle. Purebloods hated Muggles. Draco hadn’t ever met one, but he assumed it was for good reason. Maybe it had something to do with them carving each other up to take out organs. That seemed pretty distasteful to Draco.

* * *

  
Harry Potter learned he had no soulmate at the same time as his cousin Dudley was learning all about his. They were both six, nearly seven, and Dudley’s soulmate had evidently taken a liking to football. Dudley had been all sorts of bruised and battered over the past few weekends, even though he hadn’t moved from the living room rug. The bruises were big, round, and quite dark. They were mostly on his knees and shins, but sometimes on an arm or hip. Sometimes his soulmate would skin their knee or roll their ankle and Dudley would spend the rest of the day whimpering and whining, even though everyone knew that phantom wounds or pains rarely lasted more than an hour. And even then, Harry had skinned his knees plenty of times (usually because of Dudley) and knew the pain barely lasted ten minutes. Petunia, however, cared very little about reality where her “precious little Duddles” was concerned. She would spend the entire day doting over him and cursing the “wretched little girl” that had caused his affliction. Whoever his soulmate was, Petunia already loathed her.

That fate was sealed when, one eventful Saturday, they apparently took a ball to the face while Dudley was busy eating lunch.

Dudley screamed and shrieked while his mother panicked. A few drops of blood dripped from his contorted nose, dripping down towards Petunia’s pristine white table cloth while Harry and Vernon gawked.

Phantom wounds very rarely bled, but his nose had been violently smashed in with no warning so…

When Dudley and Petunia had calmed down, Vernon ruffled Dudley’s hair and declared, “She’s a rough girl, eh, Dudley?”

Dudley snuffled.

Petunia pursed her lips. “It’s a phase, I’m sure. She’ll settle down, find more feminine pursuits.” She smoothed Dudley’s blond curls back from his forehead to give it a kiss, then pulled on a brave face for Dudley’s sake. “All these nasty little hurts will just give you something to talk about when you finally meet her,” she told him in a faux honeyed tone. “Won’t that be lovely? You’ll have so many stories to share.”

Dudley had no fake honey to spare. He scowled across the table at his uninjured cousin and spat, “Harry won’t have any,” to his parents’ malicious amusement.

Harry privately thought that the crooked nose was an improvement on his ugly, round face.

The worst thing was knowing he wasn’t wrong. Harry would have no memories to ask his soulmate about, because he didn’t have a soulmate. Unlike Dudley, whose soulmate constantly injured them both – to his mother’s ire – Harry hadn’t felt or seen anything from his soulmate.

He checked himself religiously for any odd bumps or bruises, but he never found a thing. It made him so sad. Even at six, he knew the Dursleys didn’t love him; it would have been nice to know that someone, somewhere, did.

**Author's Note:**

> Literally how I saved this idea in my files:
> 
> (Magical?) kids grow up experiencing the pain of and temporarily seeing the wounds of their soulmate. When he was one, Draco started wailing in pain on Halloween night and his mother saw a briefly-there lightning scar on his forehead. Panicked, she had his connection to his soulmate severed. But the healer she hired had moral objections and made the disconnect temporary without her knowledge. Harry and Draco grow up thinking they don’t have soulmates, until fifth year when Draco’s hand begins burning during dinner and the words “I must not tell lies” ghost across the back of his hand.


End file.
